To clearly recapitulate the process, let me observe: That to begin, the pupil must have a smooth panel without knots or imperfections. The pattern is drawn on this or transferred to it. This pattern should be entirely in outline, without any inside lines or drawing between the outside edges, Fig. [24]. Take a wheel or tracer and indent the whole pattern very carefully and rather deeply, not all at one pressure, but by going twice or thrice over the line. Then with a stamp and hammer indent all the background and the spaces between the edges of the pattern. Having done this once, take another panel and pattern, and instead of pressing in the outline with a wheel or tracer, cut it with a parting tool or gouge—not too deeply. Then indent as before, Fig. [25].
This stamping the grounds is often miscalled diaper carving, but the diaper is, correctly speaking, a small pattern multiplied to make a ground, and not roughly corrugating or dotting with a bodkin, or pricking. This latter is, of course, indenting. Diapers may be either stamped or carved like any other patterns.
Fig. 25.
This process of flattening, wheeling, tracing, and stamping wood, though little practised now, was so common in the Middle Ages, that there are very few galleries containing pictures with gold backgrounds in which there are not specimens of it. Very great masters in painting frequently practised it. After gilding the ground, they outlined the pattern with a prick-wheel, which is quite like the rowel of a spur, and often traced dotted patterns with the wheel itself on the flat gold. Black or dark brown paint was then rubbed into the dots. Sometimes the stamp was also used, and its marks or holes filled in the same manner. It is not necessary to gild the background to produce a fine effect. First apply a coat of varnish, polish it when dry with finest glass-paper, then apply a coat or two of white oil paint, toned with Naples yellow, and when it is dry work it with wheel-tracers and stamps. When dry polish it again, and rub dark brown paint into all the lines and dots. Cover it with two coats of fine retouching varnish, and the effect will be that of old stamped ivory.
Fig. 26. Gouge Lines.
This first lesson may be omitted by those who wish to proceed at once to carving. It is given here because it sets forth the easiest and least expensive manner of ornamenting wood, and one which forms a curious and beautiful art by itself. With it one can acquire a familiarity with the method of transferring patterns to wood, and with the management of the tracer and stamp. The pattern-wheel should be held in the right hand, and guided by the forefinger of the left, which is a good preparatory practice for the chisel and gouge.